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10 April 2009
Analysis and Critique of Freakonomics by Steven LevittsSteven Levitts takes an interesting spin on economics in his book, Freakonomics. He uses the tools that are unique to the field of economics to answer several bizarre questions that he has formulated, and despite their bizarre nature, Levitts manages to use ordinary information to substantiate the equally bizarre answers to those questions. He begins the introduction with a shocking theory on the cause of the decline in crime in the 1990’s: Roe vs. Wade. The children, who were most likely to be the cause of a rise in crime, were instead aborted (Levitts 4). Without fear, Levitts flows directly into the theory that real estate agents are out for their own incentives, even at the detriment of their clients. Levitts uses evidence from data collected in regards to real estate agents selling their own homes versus data in regards to real estate agents selling their clients homes to back this theory, and makes a very good argument. This is an avenue to bring to the forefront his point of the advantage of expert information, or information asymmetry. His next introduction example is money in politics. Levitts uses this example to explain how conventional wisdom is often wrong, and the evidence is present in his example of how money really has no bearing on the outcome of a political election. Levitts also stresses that while he does mention many different concepts do not look for a unifying theme as there is not one.

The first chapter of Freakonomics addresses what school teachers and sumo wrestles could possibly have in common, which turns out to be cheating. Using data from standardized tests and from data collected regarding sumo wrestlers, Levitts confirms that both school teachers and sumo wrestlers have their reasons for cheating. He also discusses the different avenues that can be taken to accomplish this cheating. Levitts prime examples are evidence of teachers changing students’ test answers, and sumo wrestlers throwing a match in turn for a win later. He notes in his Bonus Materials section that the mention of cheating teachers caused more of flood of angry emails than did his abortion lowering crime theory, but his evidence is sound. (Levitts 252)

Chapter 2 deals with information asymmetry using examples of the Ku Klux Klan and the aforementioned real estate agents. The information asymmetry regarding the Ku Klux Klan was in its secrecy of a secret society, while real estate agents have trade secrets. The Ku Klux Klan was ruined by their secrets being aired on the radio, while market information on the internet has lessened real estate agents’ advantages. He also touches on how the internet has affected information asymmetry in other industries as well.

Shedding light on why drug dealers still live with their mothers is the basis of Chapter 3. Using data collected by Sudhir Venkatesh, Levitts makes clear how the hierarchy of drug dealing works, and how the dealers themselves really do not benefit greatly. This chapter is really geared toward the concept of taking conventional wisdom with a grain of salt.

Chapter 4 is where Levitts gets his chance to give some evidence to his theory on where all the criminals have gone. This chapter discusses what the popular excuses are for the drop in crime, such as the age of population and the change in the drug markets, and uses evidence to show these ideas’ flaws. Levitts then uses statistical data and correlation to give basis to his theory that abortion’s legalization and availability has caused the drop in crime.

Two chapters are devoted to parenting in essence. Chapter 5 deals with the question of how parents affect their children, and Chapter 6 has to do with what a child’s name reflects upon his or her parents. Many examples are given that explain that children are more affected by factors which include their parents prior to their...

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...Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Introduction: The Hidden Side of Everything
There are several things required to understand the world through economics: first, knowing the incentives of all parties; second, realizing that conventional wisdom is usually wrong; third, understanding that most effects have subtle and distant causes and the most obvious is often the wrong one; fourth, specialists like salesman and lawyers use obscure knowledge to achieve their own ends and the internet helps to erode this advantage by making knowledge more freely available to people; lastly, data is invaluable to understanding the world.
Chapter 1: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?
People all learn to respond to incentives, whether positive or negative from the outset of life. An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social and moral. Economic incentive is something material or tangible; moral is based of self-judgments; social is terribly powerful as it depicts what other people think of you resulting from your own actions or choices. Any incentive is inherently a trade-off; whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to gain an advantage by whatever means necessary.
Cheating is a natural act getting more for less. The government required the High-Stakes Testing as part of the...

...When people think of economics they often regard it as the study of dry, untrusting
Financial trends and market developments, but Steven D. Levitt's freakonomics is groundbreaking in the economic field shows that economic research can be used as the basis to study relationships that underlie the events and problems we encounter about every day. In Freakonomics, Levitt and his co-author, journalist Stephen Dubner, give the reader his take on some of the most interesting research topics they have tackled during their career as Rogue Economist.
The authors define economics simply as the study of incentives and how they are pursued, often a particular set of incentives that are so irresistible that people are driven to attain them through unscrupulous behavior. As an example, the authors study several prominent instances of cheating, and in each, Levitt devises a way to analyze the data to detect some of the patterns and incentives that served to compel the cheaters to act unethically. This includes Chicago public school teachers who changed student’s answers on high-stakes standardized test and japanese sumo wrestlers who have conspired to throw certain matches.
Another theme would be of information and the way that certain individuals, organizations, and businesses sometimes exploit their access to crucial information at the expense of others. For example, a journalist known as Stetson Kennedy exploited information to bring about the...

...﻿AP English III-7
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In the compelling book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner write about the unusual side of thoughts and actions that humans are too blind to notice. They conduct multiple studies and gather information that make the reader question things like how powerful incentives are, if they are being looked after like they say they are, and even the importance of a child’s birth name and how it affects their life forever. The authors really want their readers to rethink things that are going on around them and don’t be so easily acceptant to the expected. To discover more of the unknown, or just the unseen, Levitt and Dubner force their audience to take their surroundings into consideration, question things more often, and find a new way to view the world.
Chapter Six of this book, “Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other name Smell as Sweet?” brings a captivating idea to the table: the effect of baby’s names on their lives. Over the past few decades, unique and surprising names have become a more common and stereotypical link to the African-American culture. Roland G. Fryer Jr., professor of economics at Harvard University, put together a study of how children with certain names grow up to live certain lifestyles, and found that the name given to a child does not determine his or her outcome in life. However,...

...Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
"(Feldman wondered if perhaps the executives cheated out of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.What he didn't consider is that perhaps cheating was how they got to be executives.)... If morality represents the way we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work, then the story of Feldman's bagel business lies at the very intersection of morality and economics"(46)Levitt, and Dubner.
Levitt implements his first rhetorical device, diction, through the use of the phrase "overdeveloped sense of entitlement", this shows that the belief of the author, was that they were stealing simply because they felt that their higher social status made it ok. However the connotation that comes with the word "entitlement" under the circumstances it is used makes me think of more of a snobby stereotypical movie rich persona, such that in a typical celebrity matter they feel that they are in fact above the law.The second thing he does is use italics to emphasize the word "be", the purpose of emphasizing be in this case is to show the contrasting in between his ideas, and of the Feldman, the business man. It also seems to shine an eerie light on to the fact that perhaps, the cheating to get ahead in the corporate ladder was the same principle they applied to stealing the bagels, it was ok, as long as they didn't get caught. Levitt's final rhetorical device was a metaphor when he says " If...

...﻿Tre’Voris Word
28 February 2014
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FreakonomicsFreakonomics is a book about provocative analysis of human motivation and modern living. It reveals to the reader a common world through a totally different pair of lens. The author uses the raw data of economics to ask imaginative questions while it forces the reader to think cleverly and divertingly of the answers. The author’s approach to economics was done in a very unconventional way- as a smart, curious explorer parallel to Christopher Columbus when he discovered the Americas.
The book has several topics in which it focuses on. The book is structured around four essential ideas: incentives are the basis of modern life, conventional wisdom is often wrong, dramatic effects often have distant causes, and experts use their information advantage to serve their own interests. All the chapters in the book are questions. There are 2 questions or chapters that stand out to me; “what do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common” Each chapter question is answered from research conducted by Levitt.
One main point emphasized in Freakonomics is that economics is essentially the study of incentives. This point tries to help you understand why people behave a certain way and how or why they benefit from what they do. Freakonomics talks about incentives and it explains the purpose of those benefits and how and why people use those incentives....

...attention. The cover of the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner not only visually appeals to the reader but also comments on the book’s contents.
The book cover displays an apple that has been sliced, however, the inside of the apple is an orange. The illustration comments on the idiom “apples and oranges” which in turn states that two objects or ideas cannot be genuinely compared to one another; two ideas that are considered incomparable. This superimposition of two different things by way of image-on-image directly comments on the contents of the book as Levitt and Dubner strive to create connections between two different subjects that individuals would not normally compare to one another, such as cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, or crime and abortion. The book cover also says “a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything,” which is ironic as Dubner and Levitt leave out certain aspects of their argument in order to persuade the reader with more ease. The text can be described as a synecdoche as the small sentence stands for the entirety of the book, as ironic and that may be. Together, the picture and the text help to comment on subtance of the book while also keeping the reader’s absolute attention.
The cover of Freakonomics successfully pulls in the reader and depicts the book’s subject matter with just a picture and simple phrase.
Work Cited
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen Dubner....

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Freakonomics: Reading Questions
Chapter 1: Why do school teachers and sumo wrestlers cheat?
1. An incentive is something that is used to motivate or use as an encouragement to improve whatever the person is doing. In studying economics, incentives are used as form of payments, to encourage businesses to succeed in whatever they are doing.
2. The United States government puts a tax on foreign car companies to help United State citizens encourage to buy the American made cars. This acts as an incentive for the citizens to buy American made cars to support the United States economy.
3. The government’s plan to raise test scores actually worked because in public schools, teachers are awarded or punished based on their kids’ performance on standardized tests.
4. When a Japanese sumo wrestler is on the bubble, it means that if one sumo wrestler which is almost out of the competition faces a sumo wrestler that has a lot of wins, the wrestler with a lot of wins will let the one that is almost out of the competition win.
5. The authors from Freakonomics are concluding that people are just dishonest. When Paul Feldman left the basket and bagels, he noticed that all of the money was vanishing. This plays into economics because it shows us that small offices run more honestly and more efficiently.
Chapter 3: Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?
1. Conventional wisdom is something that is generally believed in. It is...

...﻿Cassie Jordan
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Throughout the book Freakonomics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the readers minds are constantly tested by atypical questions that make them change their way of thinking, from morally to scientifically. It points out how people have an ideal image of how things should be, or what they familiarly recognize to be the “right” way things work, and economics prove how things actually work. Based on the data and research gathered on specific topics shown in the book, the claim that “conventional wisdom is often wrong” is proved to be a valid statement. The authors introduce what economists mainly try to prove, “..when moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight” (13).
A question open to discussion that is provided by Levitt in the book begins as, “for what reason do drug dealers still live with their mothers if they are supposedly making so much money?” A young, white college-graduated sociologist went undercover to become up close and personal with a gang in the ghetto who participated in drug dealing. After uncovering all of the expenses that the gang leader was in charge of- including money towards drugs, weapons, board of directors fee, fighters, officers, foot soldiers, and many more- the thousands and thousands of dollars that went to all of this only amounted to each gang member receiving (aside from the head of the gang) minimum...